Berlanga wins decision but fails to impress against defensive-minded Rolls
Zayas hammers LaVallais in shutout; Rocha knocks out Cobbs; Edwards retains title; Prograis notches TKO; Teraji reclaims belt
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Super middleweight prospect Edgar Berlanga’s performance was nowhere near the explosive, offensive-minded kind he produced in scoring first-round knockouts in his first 16 professional fights, but he still got the job done on Saturday night.
The charismatic Berlanga won a quiet unanimous decision over Steve Rolls in a fight in which he had some struggles before a sold-out and largely Puerto Rican crowd of 5,158 in the main event of the Top Rank Boxing on ESPN card at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Berlanga won 97-93, 97-93 and 96-94 in going the distance for the third consecutive fight after a string of highlight-reel knockouts to begin his career.
Berlanga’s body language after the fight told the story. It was clear he was not happy with his uneven performance or the defensive-minded tactics of Rolls, who spent much of the fight backing up.
“You could tell that he was fighting scared,” Berlanga said. “Every time I reached in or threw something, he’s pulling back, running the whole fight. I was looking for a big shot. My corner was telling me use a jab. My elbow was bothering me a little bit. But I’m just happy we got the victory and move forward.”
In his previous fight in October on the Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder undercard, Berlanga suffered a left biceps tear in the third round and overcame the first knockdown of his career in the ninth round in a unanimous decision over former world title challenger Marcelo Esteban Coceres. Berlanga (19-0, 16 KOs), 24, a Puerto Rican from Brooklyn, had post-fight surgery and was in his first fight since.
The biceps was OK, but this time he said his elbow was giving him problems.
“My elbow starting hurting me in like the second round, but no excuses,” he said. “We got the biceps torn in the last fight, came back in four months and got to it.”
In the second round, an errant elbow opened a cut over Berlanga’s left eye, the first cut of his career.
“I started seeing blurry in like the fifth or sixth round. I don’t know if it was because blood was in my eye or what but I started seeing blurry a little bit,” Berlanga said.
There was very little sustained action. After Berlanga opened an early lead, Rolls made a mid-fight run as he slightly picked up the pace and landed some right hands and gave Berlanga a bloody nose in the seventh round, during which he outlanded Berlanga 25-12, according to CompuBox.
It was Rolls’ best round of the fight, by far, but he could muster little else of serious note, although he did prevent Berlanga from connecting cleanly with his best shot, a powerful right hand.
“Tonight, he was a scared fighter,” Berlanga said. “It is hard to try to land and get your shots off when you’re fighting somebody that’s scared, especially (when he was) moving back.”
Berlanga said Rolls (21-2, 12 KOs), 37, of Toronto, fought much differently than when he faced Gennadiy Golovkin in a competitive fourth-round knockout loss in June 2019.
“When he fought GGG, he brought it to GGG. With me he tried to use that running tactic. It didn’t work,” Berlanga said. “Everybody’s gonna run now (against me). I looked all his tapes and he was a stagnant fighter. Don’t move, stay right there. He fought one of the biggest punchers in boxing (in Golovkin) and took it to him for four rounds. Now, we just got to practice on fighters running because that’s all they’re gonna do.”
Top Rank’s plan for Berlanga’s next fight is to have him headline at the Garden on June 11, the eve of the annual Puerto Rican Day parade in New York.
“Edgar Berlanga fought a tough, defensive fighter, and he got some valuable rounds in,” Top Rank chairman Bob Arum said. “As you saw from the sold-out crowd, the kid is a star. There are many more big nights to come.”
Zayas cruises to shutout
In the co-feature, hot-shot junior middleweight prospect Xander Zayas beat and battered Quincy LaVallais as he rolled to a shutout decision in his first scheduled eight-rounder.
Zayas had no problem stepping up from six-rounders and won 80-71, 80-72 and 80-72 in a fight as lopsided as the scores read.
Zayas (13-0, 9 KOs), a Puerto Rican fighting out of Sunrise, Florida, and the big crowd favorite, overwhelmed LaVallais with his punch output for most of the fight and nearly stopped him in the second round, which was so one-sided it could have easily been a 10-8 round even without a knockdown.
He hurt LaVallais (12-3-1, 7 KOs), 28, of New Orleans, with a heavy right hand and pinned him on the ropes and teed off for a long stretch. Later in the round, Zayas rocked him again with an uppercut and pinned him the ropes during a sustained assault. Referee Eric Dali looked like he was close to stopping the fight.
LaVallais, who has never been stopped, showed a good chin but never really appeared to try to win. He took the punishment though, including in another extremely one-sided round in the sixth.
According to CompuBox, Zayas landed 262 of 573 punches (46 percent) — a very high number of landed shots for an eight-rounder — and LaVallais landed 66 of 398 (17 percent).
He may not have gotten a knockout, but Zayas said he was happy to get in the rounds.
“I need this type of experience. Eight rounds against a tough opponent will only help me as I move forward in my career,” Zayas said. “The plan is to come back June 11 at the Garden on Puerto Rican Parade weekend. That’s a special weekend for Puerto Ricans, and I am proud to represent my people.”
Zayas put on the performance despite his trainer, Javiel Centeno, not being in his corner. Instead, Centeno, to whom Zayas dedicated the fight, was in a wheelchair near the corner because he had to go to the hospital due to a case of sciatica that flared up Friday night.
Rocha stops Cobbs in 9th round
Welterweight Alexis Rocha stopped Blair “The Flair” Cobbs in the ninth round of an entertaining fight that at the last minute was elevated to main event status on the Golden Boy Promotions card on DAZN on Saturday night at the Galen Center in Los Angeles.
The fight was originally the co-feature but elevated when welterweight contender Vergil Ortiz Jr. withdrew from his headliner against Michael McKinson due to illness that forced him to be hospitalized overnight during fight week.
Rocha (19-1, 13 KOs), 24, of Santa Ana, California, mostly dominated fellow southpaw Cobbs (15-1-1, 10 KOs), 32, of Las Vegas, and led 79-72, 78-73, 77-74 at time of stoppage.
Rocha rocked the Freddie Roach-trained Cobbs several times before a series of heavy combinations forced referee Rudy Barragan to stop it at 44 seconds of the penultimate round.
Rocha had done so much damage to Cobbs in the eighth round, including knocking him down with a right hook, that Roach strongly considered stopping the fight in the corner but allowed it to continue after the doctor examined Cobbs and gave the all clear.
But the fight was soon over and Rocha had his biggest win.
“I will give myself a C,” Rocha said. “I got the knockout, but I know I could’ve done a lot better. He was running around. He was very awkward at first. It was hard for me to adjust. This is what I need so I can develop as an all-around fighter. It took me awhile since I wasn’t listening to my coach. I was getting careless, only throwing one shot, not cutting the ring (off) and not throwing my combinations. I could’ve gotten him out of there a long time ago. I want to give Blair credit. He was a tough opponent.”
Cobbs did a lot of trash talking leading up to the fight against the more reserved Rocha but gave him his due.
“He was just a good fighter today,” Cobbs said. “I was impressed by the way he came out. He got me with some pretty good shots. He got me in the later rounds very good, so shout out to him and his team. I was throwing shots but I wasn’t following up with them. I just couldn’t recover and figure it out in time to take over the fight. He did a tremendous job.”
McKinson (22-0, 2 KOs), 27, a southpaw from England, remained on the card in the co-feature and won a lopsided decision in a slow-paced fight against last-minute opponent Alex Martin (17-4, 6 KOs), 32, a southpaw from Chicago, whose four-fight winning streak ended. McKinson won 99-91, 98-92 and 97-93.
“It was basically a (bad) clash of styles,” McKinson said. “I didn’t feel like I was losing too many rounds. With me fighting someone so negative, I didn’t look my best, which wasn’t as exciting to the crowd. I had to stick to the game plan and be patient. I kept my distance and when I threw my shots I had to make them count.”
Edwards retains title; Prograis gets TKO
Sunny Edwards retained the IBF flyweight title for the second time, winning a unanimous decision against Muhammad Waseem in the main event of the Probellum card Saturday at the Duty Free Tennis Stadium in Dubai.
Edwards (18-0, 4 KOs), 26, of England, defeated Waseem (12-2, 8 KOs), 34, of Pakistan, 116-110, 115-111, 115-111. Waseem had one point deducted in the sixth round and another in the seventh.
“Muhammad is a world class operator and he and his team came with a good game plan,” Edwards said. “There was a lot on the line tonight but I didn’t want to just run, run, run, I wanted to mix it up and I felt I won comfortably in the end. I now want The Ring magazine belt and the WBC title and I know (Julio Cesar) Martinez wants the fight so let’s make it happen. It will be huge.”
On the undercard, former junior welterweight titlist Regis Prograis knocked down fellow southpaw Tyrone McKenna with a flush left hand in the second round and stopped him due to a bad cut over his right eye in the sixth round of a WBC junior welterweight final eliminator. McKenna wanted to go on but the ringside doctor recommended the fight be stopped.
“He’s a tough man,” Prograis said of McKenna. “I knew he was going to be tough and when I knocked him down, I knew he was going to get up. But I stayed calm. He kept pushing forward and so I had to change my game plan and box more.”
McKenna (22-3-1, 6 KOs), 32, of Northern Ireland, gave credit to Prograis (27-1, 23 KOs), 33, of New Orleans, and praised his punching power.
“He’s world class, he’s heavy handed and he’s probably the hardest puncher I’ve ever been in with,” McKenna said. “He’s got massive power.”
Junior welterweight contender Jack Catterall (26-1, 13 KOs), 28, of England, who signed with Probellum this week, was ringside three weeks after his controversial split decision loss to undisputed junior welterweight champion Josh Taylor, who had previously narrowly outpointed Prograis to unify two belts. With Taylor probably headed up to welterweight, Prograis and Catterall have called each other out and could meet for the eventually vacant WBC title.
On Friday’s Probellum card at the same venue, junior lightweight contender O’Shaquie Foster (19-2, 11 KOs), 28, of Houston, routed Tajikistan native Muhammadkhuja Yaqubov (18-0, 10 KOs), a 26-year-old southpaw, in a WBC title eliminator.
Foster punctuated his victory with a 12th-round knockdown and won 118-109, 117-110, 117-110.
Also on the card, 6-foot-7, 250-pound heavyweight Bakhodir Jalolov (10-0, 10 KOs), 27, the 2020 Olympic super heavyweight gold medalist from Uzbekistan, knocked out Poland’s Kamil Sokolowski (11-26-2, 4 KOs), 35, in the fifth round, dropping him twice in the stanza. It was only the fourth time Sokolowski has been stopped despite 26 defeats.
Teraji regains jr. flyweight title
Kenshiro Teraji (19-1, 11 KOs), 30, of Japan, regained the WBC junior flyweight title by knocking out countryman Masamichi Yabuki (13-4, 12 KOs), 29, in the third round of their immediate rematch on Saturday in Kyoto, Japan.
When they met in September, Yabuki scored the upset via 10th-round knockout to win the 108-pound title.
In the rematch, Teraji was authoritative in his vengeance, taking Yabuki out with a powerful right hand. Yabuki went down hard on his back, rolled over and barely beat the count but was in no position to go on and referee Michiaki Someya| waved it off at 1 minute, 11 seconds.
Berlanga-Rolls, Zayas-LaVallais photos: Mikey Williams/Top Rank; Rocha-Cobbs photo: Tom Hogan/Golden Boy; Edwards-Waseem photo: Probellum
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I think we can all stop treating Berlanga like he's a top prospect. He benefits from being in a pretty weak division, but won't make it far enough up the ladder to find out. He's a plodder that can't even cut off the ring. And when you get the ESPN crew to bail on you the way they have, that really says something. Zayas has more upside and should be headlining that June date if they're just gonna match them both against journeymen with decent records anyway? Can't imagine TR will send Berlanga in with anyone of note right now....
I watched Berlanga and saw nothing but need to improve, I watched Rocha and saw someone beat a fighter who is limited but could be dangerous by accident more so then skill, some unorthodox fighters have that style as a skill others like Cobbs just are that way bc (?) Sunnyboy did nothing much to up his game as far as interesting and his shout out the Martinez is a loss waiting to happen. There are a few other fighters and fights I will check out later possibly but no rush. Hope all enjoyed the fights fortunate to have them and a place to kick around lead ups and results here........